The Four Temperaments

The Four Temperaments

Schmidt Number: S-1950

On-line since: 19th July, 2002

The Four Temperaments

It has frequently been emphasized that man's greatest riddle is
himself. Both natural and spiritual science ultimately try to solve
this riddle — the former by understanding the natural laws that
govern our outer being, the latter by seeking the essence and purpose
inherent in our existence. Now as correct as it may be that man's
greatest riddle is himself, it must also be emphasized that each
individual human being is a riddle, often even to himself. Every one
of us experiences this in encounters with other people.

Today we shall be dealing not with general riddles, but rather with
those posed to us by every human being in every encounter, and these
are just as important. For how endlessly varied people are! We need
only consider temperament, the subject of today's lecture, in order to
realize that there are as many riddles as there are people. Even
within the basic types known as the temperaments, such variety exists
among people that the very mystery of existence seems to express
itself within these types. Temperament, that fundamental coloring of
the human personality, plays a role in all manifestations of
individuality that are of concern to practical life. We sense
something of this basic mood whenever we encounter another human
being. Thus we can only hope that spiritual science will tell us what
we need to know about the temperaments.

Our first impression of the temperaments is that they are external,
for although they can be said to flow from within, they manifest
themselves in everything we can observe from without. However, this
does not mean that the human riddle can be solved by means of natural
science and observation. Only when we hear what spiritual science has
to say can we come closer to understanding these peculiar colorations
of the human personality.

Spiritual science tells us first of all that the human being is part
of a line of heredity. He displays the characteristics he has
inherited from father, mother, grandparents, and so on. These
characteristics he then passes on to his progeny. The human being thus
possesses certain traits by virtue of being part of a succession of
generations.

However, this inheritance gives us only one side of his nature. Joined
to that is the individuality he brings with him out of the spiritual
world. This he adds to what his father and mother, his ancestors, are
able to give him. Something that proceeds from life to life, from
existence to existence, connects itself with the generational stream.
Certain characteristics we can attribute to heredity; on the other
hand, as a person develops from childhood on, we can see unfolding out
of the center of his being something that must be the fruit of
preceding lives, something he could never have inherited from his
ancestors. We come to know the law of reincarnation, of the succession
of earthly lives and this is but a special case of an all-encompassing
cosmic law.

An illustration will make this seem less paradoxical. Consider a
lifeless mineral, say, a rock crystal. Should the crystal be
destroyed, it leaves nothing of its form that could be passed on to
other crystals.* A new crystal receives nothing of the old one's
particular form. When we move on to the world of plants, we notice
that a plant cannot develop according to the same laws as does the
crystal. It can only originate from another, earlier plant. Form is
here preserved and passed on.

* Translator's note: The reader may conclude from this remark —
for it was, after all, a remark, not a published claim — that
Steiner was ignorant of the concept of seed crystals. However, a
likelier explanation is that Steiner, whose audience was very likely
not a scientifically knowledgeable one, was simply indulging in a bit
of rhetorical hyperbole. He doubtless knew that a seed crystal will
hasten the crystallization process in a saturated salt solution, but
this fact is not really relevant to his point, which comes out only
gradually in this paragraph. His point is not that a newly-forming
crystal cannot receive some contribution from a previously
existing one, only that it need not; this is in contrast to living
things, which require a progenitor.

Moving on to the animal kingdom, we find an evolution of the species
taking place. We begin to appreciate why the nineteenth century held
the discovery of evolution to be its greatest achievement. In animals,
not only does one being proceed from another, but each young animal
during the embryo phase recapitulates the earlier phases of its
species' evolutionary development. The species itself undergoes an
enhancement.

In human beings not only does the species evolve, but so does the
individual. What a human being acquires in a lifetime through
education and experience is preserved, just as surely as are the
evolutionary achievements of an animal's ancestral line. It will
someday be commonplace to trace a person's inner core to a previous
existence. The human being will come to be known as the product of an
earlier life. The views that stand in the way of this doctrine will be
overcome, just as was the scholarly opinion of an earlier century,
which held that living organisms could arise from nonliving
substances. As recently as three hundred years ago, scholars believed
that animals could evolve from river mud, that is, from nonliving
matter. Francesco Redi, an Italian scientist, was the first to assert
that living things could develop only from other living things.
[see Note 1]
For this he was attacked and came close to suffering the
fate of Giordano Bruno.
[see Note 2]
Today, burning people at the
stake is no longer fashionable. When someone attempts to teach a new
truth, for example, that psycho-spiritual entities must be traced back
to earlier psycho-spiritual entities, he won't exactly be burned at
the stake, but he will be dismissed as a fool. But the time will come
when the real foolishness will be to believe that the human being
lives only once, that there is no enduring entity that unites itself
with a person's inherited traits.

Now the important question arises: How can something originating in a
completely different world, that must seek a father and a mother,
unite itself with physical corporeality? How can it clothe itself in
the bodily features that link human beings to a hereditary chain? How
does the spiritual-psychic stream, of which man forms a part through
reincarnation, unite itself with the physical stream of heredity? The
answer is that a synthesis must be achieved. When the two streams
combine, each imparts something of its own quality to the other. In
much the same way that blue and yellow combine to give green, the two
streams in the human being combine to yield what is commonly known as
temperament. Our inner self and our inherited traits both appear in
it. Temperament stands between the things that connect a human being
to an ancestral line, and those the human being brings with him out of
earlier incarnations. Temperament strikes a balance between the
eternal and the ephemeral. And it does so in such a way that the
essential members of the human being, which we have come to know in
other contexts, enter into a very specific relationship with one
another.

Human beings as we know them in this life are beings of four members.
The first, the physical body, they have in common with the mineral
world. The first super-sensible member, the etheric body, is integrated
into the physical and separates from it only at death. There follows
as third member the astral body, the bearer of instincts, drives,
passions, desires, and of the ever-changing content of sensation and
thought. Our highest member, which places us above all other earthly
beings, is the bearer of the human ego, which endows us in such a
curious and yet undeniable fashion with the power of self-awareness.
These four members we have come to know as the essential constituents
of a human being.

The way the four members combine is determined by the flowing together
of the two streams upon a person's entry into the physical world. In
every case, one of the four members achieves predominance over the
others, and gives them its own peculiar stamp. Where the bearer of the
ego predominates, a choleric temperament results. Where the astral
body predominates, we find a sanguine temperament. Where the etheric
or life-body predominates, we speak of a phlegmatic temperament. And
where the physical body predominates, we have to deal with a
melancholic temperament. The specific way in which the eternal and the
ephemeral combine determines what relationship the four members will
enter into with one another.

The way the four members find their expression in the physical body
has also frequently been mentioned. The ego expresses itself in the
circulation of the blood. For this reason, in the choleric the
predominant system is that of the blood. The astral body expresses
itself physically in the nervous system; thus in the sanguine, the
nervous system holds sway. The etheric body expresses itself in the
glandular system; hence the phlegmatic is dominated physically by his
glands. The physical body as such expresses itself only in itself;
thus the outwardly most important feature in the melancholic is his
physical body. This can be observed in all phenomena connected with
these temperaments.

In the choleric, the ego and the blood system predominate. The
choleric thus comes across as someone who must always have his way.
His aggressiveness, everything connected with his forcefulness of
will, derives from his blood circulation.

In the nervous system and astral body, sensations and feelings
constantly fluctuate. Any harmony or order results solely from the
restraining influence of the ego. People who do not exercise that
influence appear to have no control over their thoughts and
sensations. They are totally absorbed by the sensations, pictures, and
ideas that ebb and flow within them. Something like this occurs
whenever the astral body predominates, as, for example, in the
sanguine. Sanguines surrender themselves in a certain sense to the
constant and varied flow of images, sensations, and ideas since in
them the astral body and nervous system predominate.

The nervous system's activity is restrained only by the circulation of
the blood. That this is so becomes clear when we consider what happens
when a person lacks blood or is anaemic, in other words, when the
blood's restraining influence is absent. Mental images fluctuate
wildly, often leading to illusions and hallucinations.

A touch of this is present in sanguines. Sanguines are incapable of
lingering over an impression. They cannot fix their attention on a
particular image nor sustain their interest in an impression. Instead,
they rush from experience to experience, from percept to percept. This
is especially noticeable in sanguine children, where it can be a
source of concern. The sanguine child's interest is easily kindled, a
picture will easily impress, but the impression quickly vanishes.

We proceed now to the phlegmatic temperament. We observed that this
temperament develops when the etheric or life-body, as we call it,
which regulates growth and metabolism, is predominant. The result is a
sense of inner well-being. The more a human being lives in his etheric
body, the more is he preoccupied with his internal processes. He lets
external events run their course while his attention is directed
inward.

In the melancholic we have seen that the physical body, the coarsest
member of the human organization, becomes master over the others. As a
result, the melancholic feels he is not master over his body, that he
cannot bend it to his will. His physical body, which is intended to be
an instrument of the higher members, is itself in control, and
frustrates the others. This the melancholic experiences as pain, as a
feeling of despondency. Pain continually wells up within him. This is
because his physical body resists his etheric body's inner sense of
well-being, his astral body's liveliness, and his ego's purposeful
striving.

The varying combinations of the four members also manifest themselves
quite clearly in external appearance. People in whom the ego
predominates seek to triumph over all obstacles, to make their
presence known. Accordingly their ego stunts the growth of the other
members; it withholds from the astral and etheric bodies their due
portion. This reveals itself outwardly in a very clear fashion. Johann
Gottlieb Fichte, that famous German choleric, was recognizable as such
purely externally.
[see Note 3]
His build revealed clearly that the
lower essential members had been held back in their growth. Napoleon,
another classic example of the choleric, was so short because his ego
had held the other members back.
[see Note 4]
Of course, one cannot
generalize that all cholerics are short and all sanguines tall. It is
a question of proportion. What matters is the relation of size to
overall form.

In the sanguine the nervous system and astral body predominate. The
astral body's inner liveliness animates the other members, and makes
the external form as mobile as possible. Whereas the choleric has
sharply chiseled facial features, the sanguine's are mobile,
expressive, changeable. We see the astral body's inner liveliness
manifested in every outer detail, for example, in a slender form, a
delicate bone structure, or lean muscles. The same thing can be
observed in details of behavior. Even a non-clairvoyant can tell from
behind whether someone is a choleric or a sanguine; one does not need
to be a spiritual scientist for that. If you observe the gait of a
choleric, you will notice that he plants each foot so solidly that he
would seem to want to bore down into the ground. By contrast, the
sanguine has a light, springy step. Even subtler external traits can
be found. The inwardness of the ego, the choleric's self-contained
inwardness, express themselves in eyes that are dark and smoldering.
The sanguine, whose ego has not taken such deep root, who is filled
with the liveliness of his astral body, tends by contrast to have blue
eyes. Many more such distinctive traits of these temperaments could be
cited.

The phlegmatic temperament manifests itself in a static, indifferent
physiognomy, as well as in plumpness, for fat is due largely to the
activity of the etheric body. In all this the phlegmatic's inner sense
of comfort is expressed. His gait is loose-jointed and shambling, and
his manner timid. He seems somehow to be not entirely in touch with
his surroundings.

The melancholic is distinguished by a hanging head, as if he lacked
the strength necessary to straighten his neck. His eyes are dull, not
shining like the choleric's; his gait is firm, but in a leaden rather
than a resolute sort of way.

Thus you see how significantly spiritual science can contribute to the
solution of this riddle. Only when one seeks to encompass reality in
its entirety, which includes the spiritual, can knowledge bear
practical fruit. Accordingly, only spiritual science can give us
knowledge that will benefit the individual and all mankind. In
education, very close attention must be paid to the individual
temperaments, for it is especially important to be able to guide and
direct them as they develop in the child. But the temperaments are
also important to our efforts to improve ourselves later in life. We
do well to attend to what expresses itself through them if we wish to
further our personal development.

The four fundamental types I have outlined here for you naturally
never manifest themselves in such pure form. Every human being has one
basic temperament, with varying degrees of the other three mixed in.
Napoleon, for example, although a choleric, had much of the phlegmatic
in him. To truly master life, it is important that we open our souls
to what manifests itself as typical. When we consider that the
temperaments, each of which represents a mild imbalance, can
degenerate into unhealthy extremes, we realize just how important this
is.

Yet, without the temperaments the world would be an exceedingly dull
place, not only ethically, but also in a higher sense. The
temperaments alone make all multiplicity, beauty, and fullness of life
possible. Thus in education it would be senseless to want to
homogenize or eliminate them, but an effort should be made to direct
each into the proper track, for in every temperament there lie two
dangers of aberration, one great, one small. One danger for the young
choleric is that he will never learn to control his temper as he
develops into maturity. That is the small danger. The greater is that
he will become foolishly single-minded. For the sanguine the lesser
danger is flightiness; the greater is mania, induced by a constant
stream of sensations. The small danger for the phlegmatic is apathy;
the greater is stupidity, dullness. For the melancholic, insensitivity
to anything other than his own personal pain is the small danger; the
greater is insanity.

In light of all this it is clear that to guide and direct the
temperaments is one of life's significant tasks. If this task is to be
properly carried out, however, one basic principle must be observed,
which is always to reckon with what is given, and not with what is not
there. For example, if a child has a sanguine temperament, he will not
be helped if his elders try to flog interest into him. His temperament
simply will not allow it. Instead of asking what the child lacks, in
order that we might beat it into him, we must focus on what he has,
and base ourselves on that. And as a rule, there is one thing we can
always stimulate the sanguine child's interest in. However flighty the
child might be, we can always stimulate his interest in a particular
personality. If we ourselves are that personality, or if we bring the
child together with someone who is, the child cannot but develop an
interest. Only through the medium of love for a personality can the
interest of the sanguine child be awakened. More than children of any
other temperament, the sanguine needs someone to admire. Admiration is
here a kind of magic word, and we must do everything we can to awaken
it.

We must reckon with what we have. We should see to it that the
sanguine child is exposed to a variety of things in which he has shown
a deeper interest. These things should be allowed to speak to him, to
have an effect upon him. They should then be withdrawn, so that the
child's interest in them will intensify; then they may be restored. In
other words, we must fashion the sanguine's environment so that it is
in keeping with his temperament.

The choleric child is also susceptible of being led in a special way.
The key to his education is respect and esteem for a natural
authority. Instead of winning affection by means of personal
qualities, as one does with the sanguine child, one should see to it
that the child's belief in his teacher's ability remains unshaken. The
teacher must demonstrate an understanding of what goes on around the
child. Any showing of incompetence should be avoided. The child must
persist in the belief that his teacher is competent, or all authority
will be lost. The magic potion for the choleric child is respect and
esteem for a person's worth, just as for the sanguine child it was
love for a personality. Outwardly, the choleric child must be
confronted with challenging situations. He must encounter resistance
and difficulty, lest his life become too easy.

The melancholic child is not easy to lead. With him, however, a
different magic formula may be applied. For the sanguine child this
formula was love for a personality; for the choleric, it was respect
and esteem for a teacher's worth. By contrast, the important thing for
the melancholic is for his teachers to be people who have in a certain
sense been tried by life, who act and speak on the basis of past
trials. The child must feel that the teacher has known real pain. Let
your treatment of all of life's little details be an occasion for the
child to appreciate what you have suffered. Sympathy with the fates of
those around him furthers the melancholic's development. Here too one
must reckon with what the child has. The melancholic has a capacity
for suffering, for discomfort, which is firmly rooted in his being; it
cannot be disciplined out of him. However, it can be redirected. We
should expose the child to legitimate external pain and suffering, so
that he learns there are things other than himself that can engage his
capacity for experiencing pain. This is the essential thing. We should
not try to divert or amuse the melancholic, for to do so only
intensifies his despondency and inner suffering; instead, he must be
made to see that objective occasions for suffering exist in life.
Although we mustn't carry it too far, redirecting the child's
suffering to outside objects is what is called for.

The phlegmatic child should not be allowed to grow up alone. Although
naturally all children should have play-mates, for phlegmatics it is
especially important that they have them. Their playmates should have
the most varied interests. Phlegmatic children learn by sharing in the
interests, the more numerous the better, of others. Their playmates'
enthusiasms will overcome their native indifference towards the world.
Whereas the important thing for the melancholic is to experience
another person's fate, for the phlegmatic child it is to experience
the whole range of his playmates' interests. The phlegmatic is not
moved by things as such, but an interest arises when he sees things
reflected in others, and these interests are then reflected in the
soul of the phlegmatic child. We should bring into the phlegmatic's
environment objects and events toward which “phlegm” is an
appropriate reaction. Impassivity must be directed toward the right
objects, objects toward which one may be phlegmatic.

From the examples of these pedagogical principles, we see how
spiritual science can address practical problems. These principles can
also be applied to oneself, for purposes of self-improvement. For
example, a sanguine gains little by reproaching himself for his
temperament. Our minds are in such questions frequently an obstacle.
When pitted directly against stronger forces such as the temperaments,
they can accomplish little. Indirectly, however, they can accomplish
much. The sanguine, for example, can take his sanguinity into account,
abandoning self-exhortation as fruitless. The important thing is to
display sanguinity under the right circumstances. Experiences suited
to his short attention span can be brought about through thoughtful
planning. Using thought in this way, even on the smallest scale, will
produce the requisite effect.

Persons of a choleric temperament should purposely put themselves in
situations where rage is of no use, but rather only makes them look
ridiculous. Melancholics should not close their eyes to life's pain,
but rather seek it out; through compassion they redirect their
suffering outward toward appropriate objects and events. If we are
phlegmatics, having no particular interests, then we should occupy
ourselves as much as possible with uninteresting things, surround
ourselves with numerous sources of tedium, so that we become
thoroughly bored. We will then be thoroughly cured of our
“phlegm;” we will have gotten it out of our system. Thus
does one reckon with what one has, and not with what one does not
have.

By filling ourselves with practical wisdom such as this, we learn to
solve that basic riddle of life, the other person. It is solved not by
postulating abstract ideas and concepts, but by means of pictures.
Instead of arbitrarily theorizing, we should seek an immediate
understanding of every individual human being. We can do this,
however, only by knowing what lies in the depths of the soul. Slowly
and gradually, spiritual science illuminates our minds, making us
receptive not only to the big picture, but also to subtle details.
Spiritual science makes it possible that when two souls meet and one
demands love, the other offers it. If something else is demanded, that
other thing is given. Through such true, living wisdom do we create
the basis for society. This is what we mean when we say we must solve
a riddle every moment.

Anthroposophy acts not by means of sermons, exhortations, or
catechisms, but by creating a social groundwork, upon which human
beings can come to know each other. Spiritual science is the ground of
life, and love is the blossom and fruit of a life enhanced by it. Thus
spiritual science may claim to lay the foundation for humankind's most
beautiful goal — a true, genuine love for man.

NOTES:

Francesco Redi, 1626-1697. Refuted spontaneous generation of living
beings out of mud.

Giordano Bruno, 1548-1600. Italian philosopher, Dominican monk,
burned at the stake as heretic. Taught that the world is infinite in
space and time and filled with innumerable suns.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 1762-1814. German Idealist philosopher.

Napoleon Bonaparte, 1769-1821. French ruler and emperor 1804-1814 and
1815.